Thinking Outside the Bots: The Power of AI

October 23, 2017Nicole Druzhinsky

This post was originally published on May 10th, 2017.

As the already vast number of connected consumers and devices continues to expand, the amount of data produced increases exponentially. At the same time/concurrently, marketers have limited ability to filter through the noise and turn consumer data into actionable intelligence. As humans, we have biases, beliefs, education, experiences, knowledge and brainpower that inform every decision we make. In other words, we have a finite ability to process information, build strategies, and achieve performance potential.

AI can accomplish years of “human” work in mere moments. With the brain power to make sense of an insurmountable amount of user-level data, AI can be used to understand preferences and contexts with extraordinary precision. AI evaluates billions of variables in real-time, and makes simultaneous decisions to analyze millions of marketing opportunities per second. The opportunities are endless. Here are two critical ways in which AI can help marketing performance:

Recommendations

Using machine learning algorithms, AI can learn and build upon consumer behavior, interests, and preferences. Recommendations currently fall in the category of, “if you bought product A, you will probably like product B,” but this technology is limited in its reach. It works well for cheap products sold in large quantities kitchen gadgets, DVDs, and complementary living room furniture, but can be harder to pinpoint for clothes, TVs, cars or other purchases that are driven by more complicated decision making.

For these product areas, the power of AI is needed. AI can take these recommendations to the next level, by utilizing the data gathered about both the products and the customers, forming a structure of knowledge on which to base the recommendations.

Ad Targeting

Marketers are often tasked with creating ads based on a certain hypothesis about a target audience. The ads are run, the conversions are analyzed, and retargeting begins. Where humans fall short is that we often question “why” something has happened.

STORY TIME! Magnetic was working with a high-end mattress manufacturer. Using our (Magnetic) data, our (human) analysts discovered that the #1 thing people were searching for when they visited this mattress manufacturers website was…mattresses. More interestingly, the #2 item was…diabetes. WHY? It took the team running the campaign over a week to figure it out. It turns out people with diabetes are sometimes overweight, they sometimes have trouble sleeping, and quite often need a comfortable mattress. After building “diabetes” terms into the campaign, the results were outstanding.

In short, an AI wouldn’t care why it was true and would have optimized to targeting these people within seconds.

In Conclusion

AI helps marketers achieve faster, smarter marketing. Its super-human proficiency alleviates marketers from executional and time-invasive tasks. Marketers are empowered to refocus their energy on critical business drivers, like campaign strategy, client service, and business development. Both marketer and machine can focus efforts on respective areas of expertise to optimize marketing delivery and performance. In turn, marketers can expect immediate efficiency gains and bottom-line impact. AI balances actions towards ROI by making sure throughput is super-high and cost-per-decision is super-low. Marketers will reach the highest-quality prospects at the lowest possible cost, and identify new revenue generating opportunities they haven’t yet explored. A win-win for both man and machine.